


Descendent

by vextant



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Body Horror, Death, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson is So Done, Sam Wilson-centric, Supernatural Elements, Tombs and Crypts, minor character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 17:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20839316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: Sam Wilson, professional adventurer, is more than willing to do dangerous things for money. When a local noble suspects their family's ancient tomb is "haunted", Sam is hired to delve into the crypts and put whatever trouble it is to rest. Not a problem — but what he finds in the depths of the mountain is most definitely not a ghost.





	Descendent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InknBones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InknBones/gifts).

> For the Sam Wilson Birthday Bang 2019!
> 
> My lovely, ever patient collab partner was the talented [Berry](https://strawberry-requiem-art.tumblr.com/), who single-handedly distracted me with the word Castlevania, indulged me in my detailed description of medieval fighting styles, designed a _beautiful_ custom set of armor for Sam, and flattered me with a dynamic work of art that I'll be printing and framing the moment half my stuff isn't in boxes. Berry, thank you so much for your patience through my move and the tragic loss of my notebook! This one's for you <3
> 
> Some spoiler-free content warnings:  
> This fic has a general "setting" of death, as much of takes place in a tomb.  
> A Minor (bad guy) OC is injured. Another Minor (bad guy) OC is killed.  
> Brief mention of pre-serum health concerns  
> Corpses make an appearance, but are not described in detail. I've tagged for body horror just in case.

The path up the mountain is long, winding, and admittedly much less ostentatious than Sam would've expected for someone with as much wealth as his employers. He would've at least predicted something paved, judging on the size of the family's estate. They've come from old money — old,  _ old _ money, and it shows in the way their gardens are maintained by a small army and their glass windows are paned with gold leaf. 

So it's a bit interesting to him that the path to the tomb is pretty much two wagon ruts the whole way up. That's practical, he supposes, for carrying the dead to their resting place. It's steep but Lady, his horse, seems to handle it without a problem.

The sun is setting over the mountain, casting his ascent in shadow and streaking the sky above in soft golden light. He's sure if he were to look down, the valley would be beautiful. He's not going to look down, because he's been climbing for hours and he'd rather not think about the height he's already reached. 

Sam wasn't expecting to get this kind of work this quickly when he rode into the village yesterday afternoon. Usually townsfolk see someone like him, a armored traveler with a sword on his belt and a falcon on his shoulder, and suddenly think up all sorts of strange errands. Could you find this herb for my brother's medicine, do you mind checking in on my father, could you bring this message to the bailiff if you're headed that way. 

He does them, of course. Not only do most folk try to compensate him within their means, but oftentimes they can be gracious enough to offer him a bed or a meal, or even both, instead of coin. Once he's sitting down, though, that's when they've got him where they want him, and small errands quickly turn to conversation, curious questions, stories of his travels. Young people will almost always try to ask him if he could teach them how to use a sword — and while he's certainly no knight himself, he won't be responsible for starting them down that path. If ever you show any skill with a blade, some lord or prince or king somewhere will always find a way to make you use it. 

Riley taught him that. 

At a turn, he passes a stone marker — a small, heavyset pillar with inscription in a language he can't read and relief carvings that have long since faded away. Sam glances up. The top doesn't seem far, he can't see the entrance to the tomb yet but that's what he wants. The longer he stays hidden is the longer he has the advantage against whatever might be lurking — the specifics of which his employer was pointedly mute on, besides broad strokes of "disturbing the peace" and "probably haunted". He dismounts and loops Lady's reins around the marker.

Sam isn't exactly a ghost-hunter, per se. He doesn't claim to have any sort of ancient knowledge or a legacy of ancestors who've been tracking down the supernatural for generations; though these and other suspicious specifics are ones he often hears from other wanderers trying to seduce superstitious folk out of their coin. Instead, he prefers to only think of himself as useful. A jack of all trades, of sorts, not locked in to a life made solely of exorcision or martial prowess. Someone townsfolk can trust with a small errand in exchange for breaking bread and not once throughout his visit consider his intentions to be set on thievery. 

Master of none, the saying also goes, and Sam supposes that's true as well. He's been needed to fight bandits as often as he's been asked to mend fences or to ride to the next town with coin for a fresh horse. On occasion he's been hired only for his sword — meaning minding merchant stalls and making pleasant conversation with passersby.

Redwing dives from the treetops and lands on his shoulder near silently. Sam can feel the soft scrape of talons against his armor as he digs into a saddlebag to tear off a small piece of dried meat and offer it with a smile.

They've been a team for years now. Truth be told, Sam's not one to believe much in any sort of providence, but winning a hunting falcon in a game of cards was a close thing. He doesn't much remember the game itself, either — only a hazy memory of the next morning with a great bird caged beside his bed, screeching at him with the morning sun. They'd been booted from the inn for that. 

"Go on," Sam whispers to him, "Keep a watch."

The bird takes off again. He disappears into the trees, the leaves looking almost gilded in the sunset. Sam doubts Redwing would be one for tombs anyway.

He puts a finger to his lips to keep Lady quiet — even though he's not entirely sure she much knows nor cares what he's asking her to do. Lady chuffs at him softly and chews at her bit. It's probably as good as he's going to get.

Sam makes his way up, deliberately staying a few strides to the left of the path to avoid being seen. Admittedly, he doesn't have much experience with proper ghosts, but he can name exactly once where he was hired to handle a supernatural threat and the threat actually turned out to be supernatural. Mostly the rustle in the bushes turns out to be a hare, maybe a sabre cat or something the further west one goes. Right now he's got his money on the "haunting" being done by a pack of wild dogs or something.

The betting itself is trivial — he's not made of coin, so he only really bets against himself. It's why he's not above jobs like this in the first place. 

The path eventually levels off into a clearing, and that's when he sees it. Carved into a sheer cliff face, flanked by pillars twenty feet high, the Erksine ancestral tomb looms over the valley below. It stakes claim to the land and passes judgement on its inhabitants in the way that only truly ancient stone is capable of. 

Sometimes in his travels, Sam has overheard discussion of whether or not these sorts of places are even worth the coin that the old families pour into them. Much of the cost goes into cursing them — or so it is said — cursing the bodies so that new spirits are not tempted to occupy them, and cursing potential thieves to protect against graverobbers. Sam supposes it must be cheaper than keeping everything under proper, constant guard for all eternity. 

Still, he's not sure he's ever seen one of the so-called curses actually work. 

He crouches in the brush, listening. He makes sure to take a moment to thank himself for spending so much on his armor — the padding hushes the plate to hardly more than a whisper, which he's grateful to the armorer for suggesting. It's made jobs like this infinitely easier to this day. 

The great stone door is cracked open. It's a large stone disc, easily twice Sam's height, that was once set into a carved stone divot in the ground to hold it in place. The great medallion is carved in all manner of runes and reliefs, no doubt meaning to tell the story of the family that it protects. Protected. It's since been cracked and hauled to the side. Oddly enough, the space is just large enough for a man to pass through. 

Haunted, indeed. 

Sam's suspicions are confirmed when he hears the hush of voices from inside. He's certain that they don't know he's there — their voices are hushed from distance rather than awareness. 

He is confident in his abilities, but he is not so brash to go charging right in, not without more information. A headcount, at least. With a partner of some kind Sam might be able to control the situation enough to scare off whatever's tried to make its home in the Erksine tomb without having to resort to violence. But he is alone, and so he must be careful.

As he makes his way closer to the door, a smile creeps across Sam's face when he recalls some of his fellows he's traveled with in the past. Some — most — would think his approach too cautious, too slow, too painstaking, would rather charge in with their blades out and held high. His response is always that he hasn't survived this long in this life without cause.

The moment he presses himself against the outer wall, right near the gap in the stone door, he hears a grumble echo from within.

"—telling you, someone's already been here. Look, you idiot, there's practically footprints in the dust."

Graverobbers, most likely. Sam's sure there's valuables aplenty wrapped up with centuries of Erksine corpses, but it's not a source of income he'd ever really consider for himself. He already sees too many bodies too often for his own taste without particularly seeking them out.

Another voice hisses back to the first. "And  _ I'm _ telling  _ you _ that's probably a breeze or some creepy-crawly or something. Either way, it doesn't matter, does it? None of this shit's been touched."

"Maybe we should just go?" comes a third, softer than the others. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bad feeling."

"Could be 'cause we're surrounded by dozens of dead nobles," says the first with a hollow chuckle. No one else laughs. "And their jewels. Help me move this."

Before Sam had left that afternoon, the estate undertaker had drawn a sketchy map of the tomb in the dirt near the stables. He closes his eyes and tries to remember it now. Roughly, it had been a hallway, he thinks — a large antechamber, fit for grand wakes and whatever other acts of mourning that the living rich hold inside their tombs, followed by a gradual descent which itself was flanked by various smaller chambers, each holding a generation or so of Erksines going back to the family founder whose resting place was the deepest within the mountain. There was something about the antechamber door that Sam was hard-pressed to remember at the moment. That's likely what the would-be thieves are trying to get past. 

He opens his eyes to think better. Start with what you know, Riley would say, before you move on to what you can do about it. So Sam does. 

The flat plane he's standing on is scattered across with small stones. Some are overgrown with moss — they're not so high up in for anything to freeze to the ground just yet — and others look as if they've recently been scattered. At a guess, the result of some animal or another moving around the higher, more treacherous peaks. 

Sam's also close enough to the gap that he can see the faint orange flicker of torchlight from within. No, bigger that torches. A campfire, maybe? He's only heard three voices, and while that doesn't necessarily mean that there's only three intruders, he's willing to bet that's the truth of it based on the tone of the conversation. 

One of the thieves groans. It's a grunt of effort, strained through clenched teeth, and there's a pause before it comes again. One of the others laughs softly. 

"Flames' sake, you assholes, shut up and  _ help _ ."

"Think you've got quite a handle on it yourself, there."

Sam has an idea. Before he can doubt himself, he's scooped up a good-sized stone and tossed it across the clearing. It hits the large pillar on the other side of the door before starting to skitter down the path back to the valley. Then he holds his breath, listening. 

"The Hells was that?"

Sam allows himself a small smile. 

"I  _ told _ you a had a bad feeling — "

"How 'bout you save it and go take a look, yeah? Me n' Gare'll get the door, don't you worry."

The third thief doesn't answer, but Sam can hear the distinct scrape and dull ring of a blade being drawn. He doesn't draw his own weapon, not yet. Not until he has to. 

If it were an easy job, he wouldn't be getting so well paid.

Sam presses as close to the wall as he can. He lets himself take a deep breath, slow so as not to be so loud as to be heard, but it steels his nerves and helps him focus. His arming sword is strapped to his hip — under his thick riding cloak, his hand hovers near it as soft footsteps echo from the tomb. 

The moment the thief sticks his head out, Sam slaps a hand over his mouth and squeezes his wrist until he drops his handaxe. It clatters to the ground and the guy goes completely still, meaning he's not trained and much more likely has limited experience fighting at all. That's always what Sam hopes for. He doesn't like to spill blood until he has to. 

"Ginger?" Inside the tomb, a big man turns around to face them and the firelight flickers behind him, outlining his tattered gambeson and half-rusted breastplate. He's got a sword at his side with no scabbard that he immediately draws. "Oh,  _ shit _ ."

"I don't wanna do this any more than you." Sam says lowly. The thief he's got has his hands up and shaking, and  _ flames _ , he's gotta be just a kid. "I'm gonna give you a chance to get out of here and not come back."

By now the third thief's heard the commotion as well, and approaches the gap in the door with a bow in his hand and a quiver on his hip. "Hells," he spits, more annoyed than anything else, "and who are you supposed to be?"

"Doesn't matter." Sam draws his sword and tucks the blade against his captive's neck — not close enough to draw blood, but only as a wordless threat, a bluff he hopes they don't call him on. 

" _ Gare _ ," whimpers the kid. The big man sighs as the archer nocks an arrow back and aims for Sam's face. 

Sam shifts his footing. Suddenly he's grateful that he he had the foresight to already be wearing his buckler — the little shield's saved his life more times than he can count, especially around men that can't be counted on to want to talk things through. "Listen, I've got nothing against you. I just need you guys to go."

"Awfully hard when you've got my boy, there," the archer growls. "Go on, Ging."

Before Sam can respond, the kid's stopped shaking and a driven a kick into the side of Sam's knee. His whole leg buckles and he staggers in surprise and pain, barely thinking to bring up his buckler before an arrow can strike him in the heart. 

The kid breaks away from him and scoops up his axe before hurrying back to his buddies. They're the tricky type, then — this sort of crew will cry wolf on the side of the road and fleece big-hearted travellers who stop their wagons for their sob stories, will send the kid crying into a village square to draw local under-trained guards into ambushes. 

Sam should've known it'd be a fight. 

The big guy draws his sword. "Had your chance, stranger. This here's our claim."

"Not exactly what I meant." Sam grits out as he staggers to his feet and grips his sword tight. The kid kicks like a mule, but it doesn't feel like anything's broken. He only caught him by surprise, which won't be happening again. "Just here to make sure you don't take what doesn't belong to you."

"You and what army?" snarls the big guy, sword up and charging forward. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees the kid scoop up his forgotten axe and try to flank him. He pretends not to notice and ducks at the last second in a smooth side step. An arrow whistles so close to his ear it might've almost cut his hair if he didn't wear it as short as he does.

Two on one is fairly inconvenient. Two  _ and an archer _ on one poor guy who's trying not to kill anybody today isn't fair at all. 

Feint, parry, step, duck, parry. It happens too fast for Sam's mind to think, but his body knows the steps. Keeping an eye on both of them at the same time is a struggle as both thieves do their level best to keep on either side of him. Another arrow nearly hits Sam in the shoulder. 

He manages to catch the kid's axe on the edge of his shield and block the big man's blow behind him with the guard on his own blade. 

The three of them are stuck like that, for just a moment. 

Quick as he can, Sam crouches and digs his shoulder into the kid's stomach, knocking him back a few steps just in time to see another arrow aimed right for him. He hesitates and hears the  _ twang _ of the bowstring too late but there's a cry of pain that doesn't come from him. 

"Flames  _ take _ you, be more careful!"

Sam doesn't have time to look as the kid and the archer fight because the big man is coming for him again with red-faced fury. He swings his blade wide, left-to-right and back again. He's keeping Sam out of sword-range, almost expertly. It's all Sam can really do to keep heading back — his own arming sword is thin and lightweight, built for travel and not for facing down half-giant graverobbers in the mountains, so he's not about to risk hammering the edge against the heavy claymore's.

His heel hits the wall, and he bites back a curse. The big man rears back for another powerful swing. Against his better judgement, Sam ducks down and launches himself forward, tackling the thief around the middle and only letting himself feel a moment's triumph as they both tumble to the ground. Sam cracks the man's temple with the pommel of his sword for good measure. As he stands, the archer fires at him again, but with his biggest distraction down for the count, Sam dodges it easily. 

The kid is leaning heavily on the stone door with an arrow deep in his thigh. He looks pale, hurt but trying to hide it, the way young men try to put on a brave face the first time they're confronted with that sort of pain. At his feet lies the handaxe, forgotten in the face of injury.

The archer is still standing in the gap of the door, guarding the entrance to the Erksine tomb. He's got another arrow half-drawn but Sam has the tip of his sword aimed for the hollow of his throat before he can aim properly. 

"Better get the kid some help," Sam says softly. He's betting an awful lot on the archer's 'my boy' from earlier.

Surprisingly, the guy listens to him. The archer sheaths his arrow back in his quiver and slides his bow over his head. He keeps his hands up, and slowly, ever so slowly, he and Sam edge around each other until they've traded places. Sudden warmth from the small campfire makes the hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand up. 

"Come on, Ging," the archer says softly, "Need a hand?"

"I  _ got it _ ," the kid hisses. 

The archer picks up the discarded axe and glances Sam's way. Sam watches him, adjusting his grip on the buckler straps, and a bad feeling bubbles up in his stomach a split second before the archer sinks the axe into the big man's chest up to the eye. 

"Less shares this way." The would-be thief shrugs. Leaving the weapon where it is, he slings the kid's arm over his shoulders and helps him away.

Sam watches them go, fighting the growing disgust as the big man's fingers twitch and his breath sputters to a stop. What a paltry thing to kill over. 

He stands there a long time. After a while he can't hear the kid's labored breaths and hesitant steps any more, but he elects to think it's because they've made it out of earshot rather than considering anything else. 

Night has begun to fall. Behind him, Sam feels the campfire go out, but there's no breeze to accompany it — just a sudden absence of light and warmth and the lingering smell hanging still in the air.

For just a moment his mind wants him to bolt. He feels it like a command whispered in his ear, not in words but in shapeless warning, and Sam fights to keep a grip on his sword. Unease settles over him like a tattered blanket — but beneath it, there's something else. 

Slowly, reluctantly, Sam turns and steps inside the antechamber. It's too dark to see much. The campfire is a dying circle of embers further in, just barely illuminating the bedrolls that surround it, but other than that Sam can't even make out how big the room is. 

He's heard in his travels of people who can see in the dark. Those few who through some gift or bloodline or measure of fate who have no need of candles or lanterns. Their eyes glint like cats' do, they say, a leftover from a forgotten age of magic, or maybe a deal with a fiend. 

Sam, to his knowledge, is not one of these people — he scoops up embers in his buckler like it's a dinner plate and carefully makes his way along the wall, hoping to come across a torch. His other hand holds tight to his sword-grip, wrist loose, but he's not about to assume anything in the dark. 

The antechamber is huge, or must be, as Sam quickly loses count of his steps and the walls are carved in a gentle curve, evidently to keep him from finding a corner. There are several times when his gloved fingertips brush against something large and flat, protruding whole inches out from the wall like an oversize stone box on the shelf. 

A  _ stone box _ — he doesn't need to get any deeper into that thought, and he takes care not to touch them too long each time he encounters one. 

After a while, he gives up on his search for the torch, convinced that he's gone the whole way around the circle just to find himself at the front door again. He reaches out to grasp for the edge of the door and for a moment realizes how strange it is that there are no stars out tonight. 

Then the stone glows dull blue beneath his touch. 

It's there and gone again, a pulse so quick he might've imagined it. His fingers catch an edge. Sheathing his sword, he sets his buckler-cum-ashtray on the ground to put his full weight behind moving it. Sam thinks it a bit odd, because if a door that size had closed, he surely would've heard it. 

Something in the wall clicks, and the stone slides horizontally along a carved path. When it hits its end the glow echoes again, this time spreading like slow lightning, and Sam takes a startled step back before it can touch him. 

He hears a soft whistle. It's low and quiet, almost a hum, and glancing over his shoulder he sees stars shining over the valley as a breeze blows into the man-sized gap in the stone. Sam's on the opposite side of the room as the door he was looking for. 

Whatever he's found is pointedly not the way out. 

There's a long relief carved in front of him, almost a shelf the way it's set into the wall. A man stands tall in the center, holding aloft a large, round carving — it looks like a wheel almost, concentric circles in runic patterns with a large five-pointed star in the center-most one. On either side of him is a group of soldiers, it looks like, armored and poised to fight the monsters creeping in from the edges. There are men's bodies with wolves' heads; slender rapiers brandished like fangs by vampires dripping in blood; and a hulking, monstrous lion with wings and a scorpion's tail. The furthest right is a tall figure, taller than the rest, but their face is scratched out even as they point to the man in the middle. 

If it is some sort of myth, Sam's certain he would know it. If it's history, he would've at least heard of it before.

Sam looks closer at the carving, hoping for some sort of sudden recognition. He'd known the Erksine family was old — he had no idea their line dated back to the age of monsters. 

The deepest lines of the relief glow a bubbling, soft blue. Its light ebbs and flows like water, favoring one side of the fight or the other before washing back to the middle. The middle, where some famous, long-dead Erksine ancestor is doing what, exactly? Sam is by no means an expert in magic, but at his best guess it looks something to do with the sun, perhaps? The only issue with that being that the fifth point of the star is pointing down. 

The star is pointing down. 

In a moment of naïve curiosity, Sam reaches for it. Then the blue light swells towards the middle again, and he hesitates. It seems a bit of a pointless exercise — the entire carving looks to be solid stone, why is he suddenly overcome with the need to correct something immutable?

Curiosity settles in his chest, so snugly that he can hear his heart beating in his ears. It's the opposite of before, when he'd wanted nothing more to flee this place and never return. Now he's fighting a sudden onset of interest. 

Briefly, Sam wonders if he's been cursed. He reaches for the star anyway, surprised when it easily gives beneath his hand and twists upward before settling into place like a lock. 

The whole wall shudders. Sam startles and takes a step back as the stone groans like a roused bear and the relief begins to tilt on its side — no, it's a  _ door _ , the whole thing's a  _ door _ , rolling slowly to the side until there's enough space for a funeral procession to pass deeper into the mountain. 

Flames, he's just broken into his own employer's ancestral tomb. 

The path in front of him is surprisingly well-lit with the blue carvings gently pulsing in lines overhead. Sam picks his buckler off the ground and dumps the ashes back into the campfire behind him — and now that he can see it better, the antechamber is indeed grand, great pillars supporting the size of the rounded cavern with a large marble slab in the middle of the room. Stone coffins lie in special slots in the walls, some blank, some with every available inch covered in runes and other carvings. 

At the Erksine estate, the undertaker had told Sam that the family prefers to keep each person's story permanently in their final resting place. He supposes it's a nice enough gesture despite not being all that accessible. 

Something comes over him then. Something like before, a feeling, a whisper without words, a cry for help but with no voice.  _ Something _ wants him to take the path down into the mountain. 

The "haunting" hadn't just been graverobbers, then. With any luck, the actual perpetrator will be more inclined to a talk rather than a fight — and not because Sam has a limited idea of how to actually  _ fight _ a ghost. 

Sam draws his sword with a sigh and takes his buckler back in hand. He wishes he'd sprung for the good wine at the inn, rather than settling for the local mead he'd ended up drinking and consoling himself with the difference in cost. 

He takes a first few careful steps down the path, half-expecting the door to shut behind him and breathing a soft sigh of relief when it doesn't. The possibility of having to wait on Redwing to solve the puzzle on the other side doesn't excite him much. 

The path starts to take on a gentle slope. Sam is nearly too distracted to notice, as he's looking in every single archway that he passes — each of them an entryway into a smaller recreation of the antechamber, with carved stone coffins resting in their divots in the walls. About halfway down, when the slope turns to stairs, the coffins are gone entirely. Instead, each body is wrapped in cloth and leather. For a moment Sam wonders if this is also the point where the practice of recording the life story to bury with the person began, but then he notices that the cloth has long-faded ink stains and the leather is carved and chiseled the way book covers are decorated. 

Silence is draped around him, more welcome than the musty stench of decay, but just as oppressive. Sam suspects there's no living thing down here at all, other than himself, but he supposes that's good enough for him — he doesn't have to kill anything down here if everything around him is already dead. 

As the distance between him and the surface grows, he's beginning to understand why this was such a tempting target. This tomb has seen whole centuries come and go, whole ages — the age of monsters, the rise and fall of the dragons, the founding of empires and the deaths of kings. Sam can feel the weight of years around him almost as much as he can smell it. 

At the bottom of the staircase is a set of doors. They're simpler than the entrances but still grand, reaching far above Sam's head, carved stone accented with ancient wood and iron. The doors don't glow blue like the ceiling does, and strangely enough, that's what gives him pause. This is the deepest, oldest part of the tomb — the walls here were chiseled out, not smooth-bore like the antechamber and not decoratively carved like the relief door, and the ground beneath is just dirt, flattened out and packed down by almost a thousand years of boots like his. 

Before he can think too hard about it, Sam pushes the door open. 

The final tomb is much less grand than he expected. It looks more like an altar than anything else, a great stone coffin on a raised dais in the middle of the room. Soft blue light filters down from above, the same sort of subtle magic as before, but it's not spread in carefully carved reliefs and rivulets, it's spilling through natural cracks in the stone like the whole room is an untapped mine. 

There's also a man on the dais. Not long-dead, not decayed, and not in any sort of coffin or burial wrappings. He's large, pale and blond, dressed in a loose shirt and trousers ripped off below the knee — no weapons, no armor, no fine clothes. At best guess, he seems to be asleep. Beside him, the stone coffin lid is cracked open, as if he'd tried to slide the lid off entirely and passed out before he could get very far. 

He's certainly less dead than everything else in here — Sam swears he can see gentle clouds of breath hanging in the frigid air. This one must've gotten further than his buddies and neglected to share the secret to getting further into the tomb. No wonder the other three were all so angry with each other. 

But what kind of fool sees the deepest, oldest room of an ancient tomb and lies down to take a nap?

Remembering the strange array of feelings spurred in him on his journey down here, Sam considers that the whole thing could be an illusion, a trap with the intent to lure him in close. The room is likely a thousand years old or close to it — Sam, with his limited knowledge of more modern magic, can only guess the capabilities of the founder of a family as long-lived as this.

He begins to search around for a rock. A pebble, even, something small that he can throw from a distance without risking coming closer. He tries not to feel relieved at the possibility that the whole disturbance was human after all. As it stands, either he shatters the illusion and considers the job done, or he chases out another would-be graverobber and still fulfills his contract. Even in the face of possible unknown magic Sam thinks he might still prefer the former to the latter. 

Sam keeps near the open doors and tosses a small ring-sized rock — not hard, in case he turns out to actually be just a man. It hits the sleeper in the shoulder, enough for him to jerk his head and let out a low groan.

It occurs to Sam that the guy might've hit his head on the way down, and he briefly regrets his suspicion. But then the graverobber draws his knees up and rolls himself over. 

As a precaution, Sam draws his sword. 

The thief blinks his eyes open and lifts his head. It seems to take a moment before he realizes Sam is there at all — long enough for Sam to rule out 'asleep' and instead settle definitively on 'unconscious'. He's murmuring something at Sam, but they're too far away from each other and the guy sounds like he hasn't had a drink in years. 

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Sam takes another balanced step forward and rests his blade on the edge of his buckler in case the thief mistakes his intentions as friendly. 

"Oh,  _ flames _ ," the thief mutters, "I didn't — I'm, I'm not — what?"

He sounds more confused than anything, but truth be told Sam's starting to get tired of this whole situation. Spending the night in an ancient tomb surrounded by bodies older than everything he owns combined is not an appealing outcome. 

The thief starts to climb to his feet, leaning on the tomb for support until he rises to his full height and steadies himself. He glances at Sam maybe twice throughout the whole process — he seems much more concerned with looking down at himself, tugging at his ragged trousers as if he wishes he could make them longer. The way he stares at the back of his hands, then flips them over to look at his own palms, then back again makes Sam think of a drunkard he used to know.

Sam clears his throat. The guy startles like he'd forgotten he was there. Then he blinks, squeezing his eyes shut and blinking again before raising a shaking finger to point at Sam. "You — your cloak?"

"My  _ cloak _ ?"

"Yeah, what —" His voice breaks, and he clears his throat with a wince. "What color is it?"

This is getting old fast. " _ Red _ . Come on, your friends have already —"

The thief cuts him off with a loud, one-note laugh, looking all the world like Sam has given him the best possible answer. "Red!"

He hurries down the dais, taking a few sure steps before he stumbles and catches himself on his hands and knees with a grunt. Sam takes the opportunity to press in closer.

"Sorry." He gets back to his feet and brushes dirt off of his filthy trousers. "I'm not used to all this. I'm Steve."

"Nice to meet you, Steve." Steve is an  _ idiot _ , Sam thinks as he digs his front heel into the dirt. He's chased off a lot of graverobbers in his day, and Steve is by far the strangest he's ever encountered. 

"You a spirit hunter or something?" 

Steve is looking at him expectantly, like Sam's just going to forget about the sword in his hand and go on with exchanging pleasantries. "Something like that."

Then the thief gets a look on his face that Sam would classify somewhere between smugness and patience. "Well, you're a little late."

"I'm going to need you to put back whatever you stole, and then leave."

Of all things, Steve laughs. "I don't think I actually  _ stole _ anything."

Sam can feel anger starting to squeeze a staccato rhythm from his heart as heat creeps up the back of his neck. The last graverobber, the man standing between Sam and a nice hot meal and a soft bed with a down quilt, could not be further from speaking plainly. A part of Sam wants to just hit Steve over the head and drag him out by his ankles, but Steve looks to be a big man, and Sam's not sure he could actually move him while he himself's still in full armor. "What is  _ that _ supposed to mean?"

"I'm," Steve starts, then hums thoughtfully. "I'm not sure, exactly. I thought it was a rumor, the whole revenant thing, probably not even real. But I got down here and woke up like this." The thief gestures to himself, unhelpfully. He must see something in Sam's face that he mistakes for want of an explanation, because he continues, "Before, you could've dunked me in a well head to toe and I'd still come out weighing under nine stone. I couldn't — I was half-deaf, and I couldn't run too far or I'd start wheezing like a mule. And now, I'm — this."

There's only a small part of that that Sam really catches. " … You said a  _ revenant _ ?"

Behind them is a loud  _ slam _ , sudden and startling, and its echoes die in the wake of a chorus of groans. 

"Only some of the stories said revenant," Steve offers quickly, even as he takes a step back towards the dais. His eyes are fixed on the closed door behind Sam. "Others said it was some kind of spirit of justice."

There was supposed to be  _ no magic bullshit _ . It was  _ supposed _ to be a "haunting", but instead Sam got charmed by some unknown force to drag himself down here and get himself locked in. He can only hope that Redwing was close enough to have heard it all the way from the clearing. 

"What, and now you're  _ possessed _ ?" Sam doesn't wait for an answer as he spins to stand beside Steve and test the swing of his sword. Footsteps are clambering down the stairs on the other side.

"It's not like I  _ knew _ this would happen!" Steve is unarmed — he's got nothing but his fists to hold up like a pugilist as  _ something _ pounds on the door. He's not even armored. 

"Can you fight?" 

"Yeah, kind of."

" _ Not helpful _ . If I can get you a sword, can you fight?"

"Stop worrying about  _ me _ and  _ focus _ ."

Sam growls low in his throat, but it's lost in the noise as the doors swing open again to a host of the dead. They're half -covered in wrappings, skin and flesh mottled and rotted by time, wielding rusty swords and snarling like dogs. 

"Soon as there's a path, we make a break for it." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve nod and set his jaw. 

One of the dead pushes past the others, shambling across the threshold only to be overwhelmed by the flood of its fellows spilling into the room. 

Sam steps in front of Steve and smiles. 

They only get a chance to breathe again when the door in the antechamber shuts behind them. Nothing is glowing now, no strange blue markings in the rock, only solid stone between them and what remains of the dead. 

Steve looks like he's been struck by lightning, sweat soaking through his tattered shirt with an ancient shield and a rusty polearm he'd picked up somewhere along the way. Sam honestly doesn't feel much better — he feels as if the padded insides of his armor have started to fuse with his skin, and he's flush from exertion all over. He looks down at his sword, coated in old, stale blood, and doesn't sheathe it. It's going to take at least a solid day of cleaning to bring it back to fighting shape. 

Sam has never gone up against the dead before and honestly, he'd prefer to never do so again. 

They regard each other for a moment, panting until the cool night air from the open door fills their lungs and the snarls die down from the other side of the stone. 

"They really seemed to want you," Sam breathes, "Or … your spirit. Or whatever."

"Yeah," Steve nods. "I can … feel it, kinda. Something that's — it's in me, but it's not me, you know?"

"No, I don't." Hesitantly, the two of them share in a chuckle. Sam can already feel that his sword arm's going to be useless tomorrow. "But I'll admit, it's more of a fight than I'm used to."

Steve seems to agree, even as he unstraps the shield from his arm and leans it against the wall to tug at the collar of his shirt and generate more of a bruise. "I've never been in that big a fight."

"Well, you're alive. So you've won. Congratulations."

That forces a half-hearted smile from the graverobber. For a moment, he eyes Sam up and down and Sam watches him debate whatever it is he's going to say. "You're not half-bad yourself."

"It's my job." Sam laughs, reluctant to wipe his sword on anything so he tucks it into his belt beside his scabbard. "Nothing like a challenge from time to time."

"Did somebody send you to find me?"

"The Erksine estate was concerned the place was haunted. I was around so they hired me to clean it out, but I'm guessing they're going to ask somebody else based on the mess we left."

Steve gives a contemplative 'huh', but takes a moment before he says, "You think they'll just take your word for it, when you collect?"

Belatedly, Sam's realized what Steve is actually saying. And he supposes it's true, he could be out of town and far away before anyone thought to open that second door and see the undead carnage they've left behind — but that's not how Sam operates. It's not how he's gotten his reputation. "I'm telling them the truth, Steve."

He starts to head outside, but Steve blocks his path to the door. "But not the whole truth. Right?"

Sam stops. He tries to read into the other man's face, hoping to deduce on his own what exactly it is that Steve wants him to leave out. The part about him being possessed by an ancient revenant, probably. 

"I'm not going to ask for a cut or anything." After a deep breath, Steve continues. "Nobody knew I snuck in here.  _ Nobody _ . It was a long shot, but I bet a lot on it and just got lucky that it worked out."

"So, you are going to steal something after all. You want to keep the spirit."

"I'd like to, yeah. I can do a lot more good like this than I could before. I got just a taste of it here, with you. Imagine what I could do with a shield made in the last century."

With a sigh, Sam pulls at the collar of his cloak, fiddling with the fur trim. It had been a gift from the Erksines, an advance payment of sorts for his foray into the mountains where it was difficult to predict the weather. The clasp is their house sigil, a circle around a five-pointed star. 

If Steve is lying — which Sam doubts he is, but he's not for one moment going to thoughtlessly believe his plea as earnest without considering the alternative — and Sam lets him go, it's a very real possibility that his vengeful spirit can do much more harm than Sam can knowingly predict. If he turns Steve in, then it's possible he'll face punishment for thievery, graverobbery, magecraft, or some combination thereof. Either way Steve still remains possessed, and either way this spirit is still a looming unknown, regardless of how well it helped its host fight for his life.

And on a selfish level, Sam's not very comfortable with the idea of a vengeful spirit who knows his face and voice having a vendetta against him. 

Steve is getting restless in the silence. "I could come with you, if you want. I can cut wood, buff armor, things like that to start to pay you back. My Ma was a nurse, I know a little alchemy. Maybe you can even show me —"

"Wait," Sam holds up a hand. "You think you owe me something?"

Shrugging, Steve levels him with a grateful smile. "Where I'm standing, you still came down and found me, even if you weren't looking."

Sam blows out a breath. Behind Steve, the big graverobber from earlier is still there, the axe handle glinting in the starlight. 

"Maybe," Sam begins, pushing past Steve and only somewhat surprised when Steve lets him by, "Maybe this guy. He look like the magic sort to you?"

Steve blinks. "Uh. Did you—?"

With a shake of his head, Sam says, "His buddies did themselves a favor before they left. But I think he looks like he knows a little magic, don't you? Shifty guy like him. Maybe a bit of a—"

"—  _ necromancer _ ," finishes Steve with a smug grin.

There's a soft cry from above, and Sam instinctually holds out his arm before he even realizes there's a smile on his face. Redwing swoops down in that near-silent way of his and chirps lowly in Sam's ear like he's chiding him for the late hour. "I know, took a bit longer than I thought."

"You're a falconer too?"

"This is Redwing." Sam beams. "He does most of the hunting."

Steve looks like he's torn between reaching out to touch the bird and fearing for his fingers. It's a healthy instinct. "And what does he call you?"

That takes a second for Sam to catch up to. He laughs and offers his hand. "Sam."

"Well, Sam, you mind if I join you and Redwing on your way back down to the valley?"

Sam looks over the scene one more time. "You have a belt, Steve?"

"Yeah?"

He nods to the body. "Take that axe, wipe it off, and hang it from your belt like it belongs there. We can talk other details on the way."

Steve laughs and does as he's told. "You got a lot of experience lying to your employers, Sam?"

"Trade secret." Sam starts down the path. He's almost forgotten about Lady — he's been gone long enough that he wouldn't be surprised if she's chewed through her reins and wandered off, as she's apt to do when she's been waiting too long. "Maybe one day, when you're older."

"Looking forward to it."

**Author's Note:**

> [Berry](https://strawberry-requiem-art.tumblr.com/) has given us a wonderful gift: a SECOND VERSION of this dynamic work of art so that everybody can sit back and admire the sheer amount of detail that went into Sam's armor design! Feast your eyes [HERE](https://i.imgur.com/xjquZ17.jpg)!
> 
> Technically, this fic takes place in the same world as some other stuff of mine that focuses on Nat and Bucky. Prior and cross-knowledge not at all required! **Please heed the tags** if you decide to read, but the first ficlet can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14081568), and also the (much more graphic) [prequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445623) features some lovely, haunting art by [Mystrana](https://mystrana.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Thank you again to [Berry](https://strawberry-requiem-art.tumblr.com/), as well as to the mods of the Sam Wilson Birthday Bang for putting up with all of us and bringing everybody together for this. It was a pleasure!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! If you'd like to, please consider sharing on [twitter](https://twitter.com/vvextant/status/1178863471699595270?s=20) or [tumblr](https://vextant.tumblr.com/post/188056329776/descendent-art-design-strawberry-requiem-art) :)


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